The Effects of Using Nursery Rhyme on Young EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Knowledge

Vocabulary is one of the most critical elements in language learning without which communication is not possible. Therefore, it is important to adopt an effective method for teaching it. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of using nursery rhymes on young learners’ vocabulary knowledge. Thus, it was hypothesized that using nursery rhymes have an effect on Iranian EFL young learners’ vocabulary knowledge. The participants in this study were 40 EFL learners who were chosen non-randomly from learners in Andishe Sabze Ehsan Language Institute in Urmia, Iran. They were divided into two groups, the first group was a control group, the second one was experimental group which was treated by nursery rhyme and both groups included male and female learners. The researcher instructed experimental group using nursery rhyme for learning vocabulary after ensuring the homogeneity of two groups. Independent t-test was used to measure the differences between participants in nursery rhyme and control groups. The obtained results of the independent t-test revealed that using nursery rhymes in class have significant influence on learners’ vocabulary knowledge. The findings of the current study may have some useful implications for language teachers and syllabus designers to include a variety of audiovisual with the aim of improving vocabulary learning in kids’ classes.